BofA to sell securities for TARP repay later Thursday

Bank of America Corp will sell the securities it will use to help repay $45 billion in government bailout funds Thursday evening, based on extraordinary interest, its chief financial officer said.

Joe Price also told investors in a conference call that the bank was seeing signs of credit stabilization and that managed losses on credit cards had plateaued.

Under a pact with U.S. regulators, the largest bank by assets will sell up to $18.8 billion in securities that will convert into common stock once shareholders approve an increase in its share count. The remainder of the $45 billion would be repaid through $26.2 billion in cash.

The equity offering listed Bank of America-Merrill Lynch and UBS Investment Bank as underwriters, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Bank of America shares were up 3 percent, or 47 cents, at $16.12 in late Thursday morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange after earlier gaining as much as 6 percent.

The full repayment of TARP is an incremental positive in the sense that it relieves the intense regulatory and political scrutiny tied to its receipt of government money, Credit Suisse analyst Moshe Orenbuch wrote in a note to clients.

(Reporting by Juan Lagorio, Chuck Mikolajczak and Dan Wilchins; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)